The Scoring of Baroque Concertos

Evidence indicates that the concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn etc were performed as chamber music, not the full orchestral works commonly assumed.

The concertos of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel and their contemporaries are some of the most popular, and the most frequently performed, pieces of classical music; and the assumption has always been they were full orchestral works. This book takes issue with this orthodox opinion to argue quite the reverse: that contemporaries regarded the concerto as cha...